November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. I am absolutely convinced that it is necessary to return the law on domestic violence to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. But I don't want to speak about domestic abuse, but about victimblaming — condemning the victim. I want to understand why society most often blames a woman who has been a victim of violence. And I presented my vision of the reasons for victimblaming in an interview with Voice of America journalist Ksenia Turkova. I will share here the main points of our conversation, which can be viewed and read on the Voice of America website Daria Nevskaya: “Our woman has not atoned for original sin; she will always be to blame”.
It seems to me that there are several reasons that should be rooted in history. It's no secret that many parents for some reason blame their child for having a bad story. It starts from early childhood, when a child runs and falls, and the mother, instead of picking him up and kisses him, suddenly she grabs him and starts screaming: “I warned you, it's your own fault! Why did you do this?” So later, when a child has bullying stories, he doesn't tell his parents because the parents will say, “Well, it's your own fault. How do you act? It's probably your own fault.” This is how a guilt complex is formed, which leads to the fact that children are at risk — they are potential victims of tyrants. Why is this happening here? Because historically, it is a Soviet tradition that a child, as a pioneer, as an heir to the Communists, must be strong and brave. Who is our outcast in 1950s children's literature? Not just a child who does not meet the requirements for a pioneer, but a weak patient who does not comply with GTO standards is not one who can replace his father and defend his country. In other words, weakness in children has historically been perceived as a child's flaw; this is how we were raised.
The second story is about society and commenting on events on social media. Why did people start blaming the victim in the story of Associate Professor Sokolov, who killed his graduate student and dismembered her? Where do comments that people blame the unhappy victim come from? Perhaps many of the people who comment on these posts sympathize with the victim, but they read other people's comments “it's your own fault, there was nothing to mess with the old man”, “haven't you seen anything in these years while she was in a relationship with him?”... People who read other people's comments of this kind seem to get into a state of emotional resonance and start thinking, “Hmm, it's true!” And this is where what psychologists call the “fictitious norm” comes into play. In fact, it was the basis for all the totalitarian persecution and persecution of Stalin's times, when general meetings were held, and everyone, in one impulse, began to stigmatize the victim. The majority can't be wrong. The majority is backed by strength.
And I will also name one possible reason for this victimblaming. Apparently, in our tradition, a woman did not atone for original sin, and she would always be to blame. This is a tradition of patriarchal culture and patriarchal structure. A woman is always weak and at the same time always guilty. But for some reason, it must also be strong and must resist... But we can see in the story of the Khachaturian sisters what this struggle leads to, when they were also accused of having been patient for so many years and not telling or complaining to anyone. Why didn't they complain? And here I would like to mention another tradition. What happens in the family should stay there. The family is a fortress, a home, a protection, and no one should know what is really going on there, no matter how the situation develops in the family. Everything is great with us, everything is great! The husband is the head of the family, and everything the head does is right. If you have aroused your husband's indignation, then you are guilty yourself and you need to think about what exactly. I served it wrong, sat down the wrong way, got up the wrong way...
So, on the one hand, a family is a fortress, but on the other hand, terrible things can happen outside this fortress, but no one should know about it. I would like to draw your attention to another reason that led social media users to blame Sokolov's unfortunate victim. Again, this is a historical respect for human status. Sokolov is an associate professor at the university, a scientist, the founder of the reconstruction movement, and who is she? A girl, a graduate student whose name no one knew until an associate professor killed her. Society tends to justify high-profile people. It is easy to blame anyone, but a woman and a child are lighter than an easy one. Of course, it's not just women who are victims of violence that are being killed, but women are victimblamed much more often than men. And what is interesting is that there are a lot of women among those who stigmatize unhappy girls who are victims of violence. What is the reason for this amazing phenomenon? Why are women ready to accuse the rape victim of being “to blame” because she was walking in the park in the evening wearing a short skirt and heels? In my opinion, this is where a defensive reaction works; this is not going to happen to me. These women, when they judge, feel superior to the victim. “But I'm not caught, I'm not like her, and I'm never going to be in this situation!” People often need to feel at least something superior to other people. When men condemn, they have something else in mind: accessibility, which, so to speak, incites them — a woman is both to blame and attracts with its accessibility.
How do my thoughts about the causes of victimblaming relate to the topic of our site? The link here is direct. In our society, if you talk about being your child or victim, you're an outcast. People share their stories and the stories of their children in private correspondence, but they are categorically against submitting this for public discussion, even anonymously. Our site has a “Your stories” section, and in this section, real people anonymously shared their stories at my request, but there are few such people. The situation in the West is quite different. Please note that almost all sites dedicated to mobbing and bullying there are created by victims. I was also mobbed at one time and created a Western-style project. I'm not afraid to say that I'm a victim of college mobbing. I'm not afraid of being accused of being #самавиновата. But our people don't want to share, they're afraid to share, they don't want to have the status of a victim, and they don't want someone to think that there's something wrong with their children or them since they're being rotted. In the post-Soviet space, the topic of mobbing is taboo. They prefer to keep silent about her. And the repeal of the law on domestic violence is the result of such a “tacit consent” of society, from which, as we remember, all crimes begin.
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